Page 48 of Obsession

His nostrils flare, and the table quakes as he slams his hands down on the fine mahogany. While he works to compose himself, I glance nervously at the tittering china and serving dishes.

“I don’t want his name on your lips,” he says like a demand. “Not in my presence.”

I take another sip of wine for nerves, trying to slow my heart. No J word. Duly noted.

It’s not that I think that he would hurt me, not necessarily, but he has been volatile today. Even more unpredictable than usual.

Aris’ eyes continue to twitch for a moment before he straightens the tie he put on for dinner. “Do you want to argue, or do you want to listen?” he asks, voice now level and what he considers to be reasonable.

I say nothing.

He settles, but still looks unhappy when he says, “The three of us were created to influence the universe.”

I already have questions. Created? By who, or what?

I ball my hand into a fist to stop myself from asking. Aris is finally telling me things; I don’t want to interrupt and risk him changing his mind.

“Our maker was torn, you see,” Aris continues. “He, or it, you could say, didn’t know how to rule. His thoughts contradicted one another, leaving him indecisive. Ineffective. And so he created us: me, as Chaos, Jaegen, as a neutral Watcher, and my sister, reigning as Order. We were forged to make these decisions for him.

“As you know, I am Chaos. What my sister built, I destroyed; what was whole, I fractured, and I always won; kicking a tower of blocks is much simpler than stacking them in the first place. Less time-consuming, and,” he smiles, “more fun.”

I am Chaos.

:)

My face heats in the drafty room as I recall the events from earlier. Jaegen is wrong—Aris is evil. He’s telling me that he was created to destroy.

Take his memory and purpose, and he’ll just revert back. Even if the spell works, it won’t matter.

“As you have likely gathered, my sister and I did not ‘get along,’” Aris goes on as I struggle to mask my horror. “We were two halves, the antithesis of the other. Jaegen was a different shape. Something I didn’t consider. While my sister and I acted, complimenting the other, his role was to sit back and observe. The neutral nothing. The Watcher.

“He argued, sometimes,” acknowledges Aris, picking up his glass again. He looks into the red liquid, as if at a memory, brows pushed together, before continuing, “He urged us to find common ground, but such was impossible—against our reason for existence. Still, he resented us for not listening. After a certain point, Jaegen stopped accepting what we had to say, and he finally acted, taking the role of my sister.”

I wait for him to continue, but Aris has paused here. Tentatively, I ask, “Taking the role? Did he… kill her?”

Aris raises a brow. “‘Kill?’ She was an abstraction.”

“But so are you,” I say, “and you have a personality and thoughts.”

“If you consider the removal of those things to be death, then yes, he murdered her,” says Aris. “Personally, I would say something more like he… consumed her.”

I stare at him, then lean back in my chair. The firm back helps support my body and mind both; if I were standing, I’d have fallen from shock.

This is a… lot. And, again, entirely unexpected.

First of all, Aris has siblings. Two. And they were all created. God, as mankind knows him, does exist. He’s always existed, just not how we thought. He isn’t all-loving or wrathful or anything in between; he created his children to feel those things for him. He made Aris, Jaegen, and another.

And then Jaegen killed his sister. Consumed her. Took her place.

I study Aris, searching for some shred of humanity. He had a sister and she’s gone now—certainly that hurts him in some way. It must penetrate. And yet, Aris is composed. He told me about her death almost casually, like a war reporter.

Disappointment rushes through me—not at him, but at myself. Why did I think he’d care? Why did I even look for emotion?

I finally manage words, speaking slowly. “What Jaegen did to your sister… you can be killed.”

Aris gives me a look like, don’t even think about it. Then, he sighs. “We can relinquish ourselves. Knowing her, she did so simply because Jaegen asked her to.”

“Seriously? She killed herself?”

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